Hurricanes and Fabricating Fear

When it comes to the nation's media machines, one thing is painfully obvious: FEAR SELLS.

I'm under the belief that irrational fear actually generates more problems, however, than the events provoking them in the first place. It is a truth that all of us maintain both rational and irrational fears, and these to an extent dictate our actions.

Think about this ... an irrational fear of snakes may drive a person to panic when seeing a snake in any circumstance. The instant panic provokes a response. The individual runs as hard as they can in the opposite direction and in the process trips on a branch they did not see, strikes their head and is gravely injured. Now ask yourself: Did the snake cause this incident? Would it have been preferable for this person to have cultivated a fear of tree branches rather than snakes?

The fact is that it wasn't the snake that caused the accident ... the snake just happened to be there. The accident can actually be attributed to irrational fear. And that fear was fed and nurtured over time ... most likely, by accumulating mis-information. An appropriate and measured response to seeing a snake may have been to simply turn and walk away. Or to stand completely still. These responses are fed by knowledge and understanding, rather than fear. But to get such a response, we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that if we are walking outside, from time to time we will come upon a snake. It is a fact of the world in which we live.

It's interesting that I once watched a program in which a man (who loved snakes, by the way), climbed a tree so that he could catch and hold an African Black Mamba. For those of you who do not know, this is considered the single most venomous creature on the planet. When he caught the snake and started to climb down the tree, he said something I thought was interesting: 'I want to be careful as I climb down, not because I'm afraid of getting bitten, but because I'm afraid the snake might somehow accidentally bite itself.' That got me to thinking ... what keeps a snake from biting itself and suffering from the effects of a toxin its own body produces? It is not afraid of itself. It is not an irrational creature, but rather lives by instinct. And part of that instinct must include a respect for its own power based on the knowledge of what it is capable of.

We have this built-in natural fear as well. It is the respect for our own power that keeps us from doing stupid things ... taking unnecessary chances ... and putting our lives at impossible risk. Don't believe me? Go lay in your driveway and ask someone to run you over with your car. Hey ... maybe you'll survive just fine. That's a risk you'll have to determine your willingness to take. We feed this inborn respect over time as we grow and mature and learn the things we can do and the things that will risk getting us hurt.

Okay, so it's time to look at some statistics. Here are some average numbers of fatalities caused by various things in the United States each year:

Deaths from drunk driving = 17,000
Deaths from cancer = 547,000
Deaths from gunshots = 30,000
Pedestrians struck by cars = 5000
Lightning strikes = 73
Plane crashes = 120
Hurricanes = 75

Now, going strictly by the numbers, it would be much more rational for me to feed a fear of drunk drivers (or driving in general) rather than a hurricane. In fact, you are more likely to die fleeing ahead of a hurricane than from the hurricane itself. Don't believe me? Check your numbers.

So what people need when it comes to the way they decide to face of the natural forces of this planet is not an irrational fear ... what they need is to build a healthy respect. People do not typically respond well to attempts at scaring them into action. This is feeding irrationality. Actually, give people some credit. They are smarter than that. Why is it that people respond to strong warnings so negatively oftentimes? Why do they fly in the face of logic and remain determined to ride out a storm on the beach rather than simply drive 30 miles inland?

For many, it is because of experience. Most of them have experienced a hurricane before in some form or fashion. They've seen the news, they've heard the reports, they've witnessed the damage firsthand. But when the next storm comes, they still don't budge. They are willing to take the gamble that they'll live to tell about it. They rationalize their fears based on that experience. You can beg them. You can plead with them. You can show them the people who have died in the big hits. But none of that matters. Why? Because you are attempting to create irrational fear in someone who feels they know better than you.

So what is the solution? I'm not exactly sure. How do you persuade someone to take action they may not otherwise be inclined to take? How do you help someone to see that just because the last storm did not kill them, it does not mean the result will be the same this time? My guess is that the answer lies in society in general and creating a culture that responds pro-actively to threats. But as we think about the things standing between us and arriving at that point ... one of the first big obstacles is the profit created by an enormous and catastrophy-hungry media.